Transcript middleschoolatsage.weebly.com

Living Life like a Writer
Keeping Lists
Miss Skoro's English class
Sep 19, 2012
Living Life like a Writer
“What is it about lists? Maybe it's the need
humans have to accumulate stuff. Maybe it's
the urge to catalogue our immense,
mysterious world. For whatever reason, many
writers keep lists: favorite books, movies to
see, ideas for all sorts of writing projects. And
the Writer's Notebook is the ideal place to
keep them.”
(Fletcher, 72)
Living Life like a Writer
Example:
One student, Sara Zerner from New York, keeps lists of words
she likes:
Zap
Zimbabwe
Zombie
Zit
Zelda
Penguin
banana
Cactus
Crunch
Colorado
Dolphins
Couplet
Living Life like a Writer
Ralph Fletcher keeps lists of his favorite words in
his writer's notebook:
Persnickety
Succatash
Chimichanga
Tse-tse fly
Boutros
Boutros-Gali
Scuppernong
Calabash
Crescendo
Quicksand
Living Life like a Writer
Barry Lane's suggestions for keeping lists in
your writer's notebook:
Places
Questions to write about
People to write about
Cartoons
Quotes
What-Ifs
Book blurbs
Silly facts
Living Life Like a Writer
(Slide added after the lesson was given)
Ideas for lists your classmates use:
Favorite characters
Things you like
Favorite superheros
Places you wanna go
Things that bother you
Characters from your story
Favorite words
Names of people you know
Characters from horror movies
Stories you might write
next
Names spelled backwards
Places where/when you would
visit if you had a time machine
Characters from
favorite tv shows
Things that scare you.
People and what you know
about them
Personality/character list
Story ideas from other
people's clothing
Places or things small people
could use or live in
Funny words
Character personalities for
horror stories.
Animal stories
Lists of facts
Living Life like a Writer
In short, you can keep any kind of list in your
writer's notebook that might possibly contribute
to your writing or your writing ideas.
Quickwrite: Over the next 5 minutes, choose one kind of
list to start in your writers notebook. You may use one of
the suggestions from this presentation or come up with your
own. Write for the whole five minutes and put down as
many items as you can. Be ready to share at the end.